The explosions Martha had anticipated seem to have canceled one another out. When Lex saw the paper, his face compressed into the folds of rage, but when his angry eyes swept the room, they softened instantly at the shock that still lingered on Clark's face. In the immediate moments after, when Clark's incredulity faded, to be replaced by outrage, Lex's self-imposed calm was enough to make Clark catch himself after one shouted, "I can't believe it!" By the time that Jonathan came in from the first milking, that same calm had turned to purpose, and Lex was talking to his press secretary in Metropolis.
"No, not 'no comment.'" Lex was clearly only half-listening to the response that followed.
"I know all that. But let's just say that priorities have changed."
"No, I'll draft it myself."
"No, but *I* know what I want to say."
"Let him rant for ten minutes, then tell him I don't need his services any more. I am *not* running. Not yet, at any rate."
"A wise man knows his own priorities." His press secretary, Martha decided, must have been having kittens, judging from the satisfied and faintly malicious smirk on Lex's face as he hung up.
***
Lois Lane knew that if you arranged the facts, with just the right amount of speculation, you'd get the story. The rest of the details would fall in later.
Fact: Lex Luthor didn't do anything that didn't benefit him.
Fact: Lex Luthor had spent a week on a farm in the middle of a nowhere known as Smallville.
Conclusion: There was something to Lex Luthor's benefit on that farm.
Fact: Clark Kent had been through some kind of hell, but it sure didn't involve brain surgery anywhere in New York.
Fact: Lex Luthor was hiding something about Clark Kent.
Fact: Both Clark Kent and his father seemed to consider Lex Luthor an ally. Even a friend.
Conclusion: Clark Kent and his father were making a big mistake.
Fact: She'd made a rash promise not to pursue the story.
Fact: That didn't mean she couldn't make suggestions elsewhere.
Conclusion:
Her phone rang, four IMs appeared on her screen, and there was what sounded like a miniature riot next to the fax machine. She strode out of her office with the confident walk of a woman who knows there is a big story somewhere and she will get to the bottom of it faster and better than anyone else could.
"It's a joke. It's got to be a hoax!" One of the new reporters was sputtering.
"Let me see." She efficiently yanked the fax from another reporter's hands, but held it so they could both read. It was a media advisory from Lex Luthor. Most of it was verbiage, but the salient phrases seemed to jump out, like over-excited kids demanding attention. "I am involved with another man." "Clark Kent's privacy and that of his family deserve safe-guarding, especially in light of his recent serious illness."
Conclusion: Well, damn.
***
Lex, Martha noted, had lost nothing of his ability to preen or swagger. He was doing both as he came back inside after observing the effect that eight wolfhounds wandering the front yard had on the latest group of reporters to drive up. She could understand their consternation--she'd been rather uncertain about the whole idea when she saw just how big the dogs were, though once the breeder who delivered them made the introductions, the huge animals immediately accepted the Kents and Lex as their new best friends. They were disciplined dogs: The moment the first reporter got out of the car, they trooped to the front gate and just looked *ready*. Not a growl, not a snarl, but somehow that just suggested that the dogs weren't going to waste energy on displays.
She did wish that the timing had been better. There was no way that she and Jonathan were going downtown to see the various Homecoming Day festivities, not after that photograph. Though the idea of encountering some of the more malicious tongues, with oh, three or four of the dogs in tow, now that was a tempting thought. But more seriously, she worried about Clark's reaction, and how well she and Jonathan were handling it.
She could see the drain it took on his nerves to go outside before, and they hadn't pushed him, trying to take it in easy steps that he could handle. Part of it was that they all knew his fears were mostly irrational, but there was no denying that outside, there were threats. She'd read books on phobias and learned responses, and they seemed to be doing all the right things. In fact, she'd never imagined that the arrogant and powerful Lex Luthor could be so patient, so subsumed in another's needs. But they'd exchanged worried glances--she and Jonathan and Lex--when Clark had seemed so relieved when Jonathan had said that to avoid photographers, Clark had better skip that morning's outside chores. He'd looked like someone in front of the firing squad who was just given a reprieve.
At least the day was nearly over. Lex had gone back to the living room, Lex as usual with the computer hooked up to the LexCorp network, and two cell phones, Clark as usual with his textbooks. She was finishing the last of the bills and it was Jonathan's night to cook. She could afford herself a few minutes to think.
What drove them, she didn't know, but certain souls seem to be drawn to certain destinations. That was the conflict between her and her father: He was drawn to success, she to happiness. Happiness, for her, was this life with Jonathan, a life of integrity and hard work, with its warm core being their love, their family. Lex? Success had drawn him, drawn him against his own inclinations, and mercilessly forcing him to jettison everything else as it dragged him, stumbling and finally racing towards itself. And then Clark had appeared in the middle of that path, stopping Lex's progress with no more than the love and trust he had offered. Jonathan had strengthened that, with the fierce parental love that was ready to spill itself generously from Clark to Clark's chosen love, and now seemed to wrap itself around Lex for his own sake, to fill, without pity but with sympathy, the vacuum that the young man's need for a parent's love had created. Lex, like her, had now turned towards happiness. But Clark himself? Was he even choosing a path, or was inertia leaving him without direction, like a toy ship on a stagnant pond?
***
Conversation during dinner was desultory, until Jonathan mentioned Homecoming, in passing, as they were finishing.
To Martha's surprise, Lex frowned. "Homecoming?" She didn't understand the look of concern and then resolve that passed across his face.
"Something wrong?" Jonathan had noted it, too.
"A night with its own traditions. Rituals, even, reinactments of darker times. It's not just coincidence that it coincides with harvest time."
"The scarecrow, you mean?" Jonathan understood quicker than she, but she guessed that he was as lost at she in trying to understand the emotions passing between Clark and Lex. Clark's head was lowered, his shoulders tensed, as if he were bracing himself for something, and Lex was looking at him with a world of aching volition, like someone longing to pour strength into a vessel that only one person can fill. The two young men seemed oblivious to everything but this silent struggle.
Clark finally lifted his eyes to Lex's with a tiny, timid nod, and she could almost sense the relief flooding Lex's thoughts as he smiled at Clark.
"Now's the night that it's going to stop," Clark said, firmly, as he got up to get his jacket. Martha felt understanding wash over her--she should have known that it would be another's need that would draw Clark, that would give him not just the gentleness of goodness, but its preternatural strength.
***
A/N
Feedback is she-crab soup with fresh scallions and ginger root for the fic writer's soul!
"No, not 'no comment.'" Lex was clearly only half-listening to the response that followed.
"I know all that. But let's just say that priorities have changed."
"No, I'll draft it myself."
"No, but *I* know what I want to say."
"Let him rant for ten minutes, then tell him I don't need his services any more. I am *not* running. Not yet, at any rate."
"A wise man knows his own priorities." His press secretary, Martha decided, must have been having kittens, judging from the satisfied and faintly malicious smirk on Lex's face as he hung up.
***
Lois Lane knew that if you arranged the facts, with just the right amount of speculation, you'd get the story. The rest of the details would fall in later.
Fact: Lex Luthor didn't do anything that didn't benefit him.
Fact: Lex Luthor had spent a week on a farm in the middle of a nowhere known as Smallville.
Conclusion: There was something to Lex Luthor's benefit on that farm.
Fact: Clark Kent had been through some kind of hell, but it sure didn't involve brain surgery anywhere in New York.
Fact: Lex Luthor was hiding something about Clark Kent.
Fact: Both Clark Kent and his father seemed to consider Lex Luthor an ally. Even a friend.
Conclusion: Clark Kent and his father were making a big mistake.
Fact: She'd made a rash promise not to pursue the story.
Fact: That didn't mean she couldn't make suggestions elsewhere.
Conclusion:
Her phone rang, four IMs appeared on her screen, and there was what sounded like a miniature riot next to the fax machine. She strode out of her office with the confident walk of a woman who knows there is a big story somewhere and she will get to the bottom of it faster and better than anyone else could.
"It's a joke. It's got to be a hoax!" One of the new reporters was sputtering.
"Let me see." She efficiently yanked the fax from another reporter's hands, but held it so they could both read. It was a media advisory from Lex Luthor. Most of it was verbiage, but the salient phrases seemed to jump out, like over-excited kids demanding attention. "I am involved with another man." "Clark Kent's privacy and that of his family deserve safe-guarding, especially in light of his recent serious illness."
Conclusion: Well, damn.
***
Lex, Martha noted, had lost nothing of his ability to preen or swagger. He was doing both as he came back inside after observing the effect that eight wolfhounds wandering the front yard had on the latest group of reporters to drive up. She could understand their consternation--she'd been rather uncertain about the whole idea when she saw just how big the dogs were, though once the breeder who delivered them made the introductions, the huge animals immediately accepted the Kents and Lex as their new best friends. They were disciplined dogs: The moment the first reporter got out of the car, they trooped to the front gate and just looked *ready*. Not a growl, not a snarl, but somehow that just suggested that the dogs weren't going to waste energy on displays.
She did wish that the timing had been better. There was no way that she and Jonathan were going downtown to see the various Homecoming Day festivities, not after that photograph. Though the idea of encountering some of the more malicious tongues, with oh, three or four of the dogs in tow, now that was a tempting thought. But more seriously, she worried about Clark's reaction, and how well she and Jonathan were handling it.
She could see the drain it took on his nerves to go outside before, and they hadn't pushed him, trying to take it in easy steps that he could handle. Part of it was that they all knew his fears were mostly irrational, but there was no denying that outside, there were threats. She'd read books on phobias and learned responses, and they seemed to be doing all the right things. In fact, she'd never imagined that the arrogant and powerful Lex Luthor could be so patient, so subsumed in another's needs. But they'd exchanged worried glances--she and Jonathan and Lex--when Clark had seemed so relieved when Jonathan had said that to avoid photographers, Clark had better skip that morning's outside chores. He'd looked like someone in front of the firing squad who was just given a reprieve.
At least the day was nearly over. Lex had gone back to the living room, Lex as usual with the computer hooked up to the LexCorp network, and two cell phones, Clark as usual with his textbooks. She was finishing the last of the bills and it was Jonathan's night to cook. She could afford herself a few minutes to think.
What drove them, she didn't know, but certain souls seem to be drawn to certain destinations. That was the conflict between her and her father: He was drawn to success, she to happiness. Happiness, for her, was this life with Jonathan, a life of integrity and hard work, with its warm core being their love, their family. Lex? Success had drawn him, drawn him against his own inclinations, and mercilessly forcing him to jettison everything else as it dragged him, stumbling and finally racing towards itself. And then Clark had appeared in the middle of that path, stopping Lex's progress with no more than the love and trust he had offered. Jonathan had strengthened that, with the fierce parental love that was ready to spill itself generously from Clark to Clark's chosen love, and now seemed to wrap itself around Lex for his own sake, to fill, without pity but with sympathy, the vacuum that the young man's need for a parent's love had created. Lex, like her, had now turned towards happiness. But Clark himself? Was he even choosing a path, or was inertia leaving him without direction, like a toy ship on a stagnant pond?
***
Conversation during dinner was desultory, until Jonathan mentioned Homecoming, in passing, as they were finishing.
To Martha's surprise, Lex frowned. "Homecoming?" She didn't understand the look of concern and then resolve that passed across his face.
"Something wrong?" Jonathan had noted it, too.
"A night with its own traditions. Rituals, even, reinactments of darker times. It's not just coincidence that it coincides with harvest time."
"The scarecrow, you mean?" Jonathan understood quicker than she, but she guessed that he was as lost at she in trying to understand the emotions passing between Clark and Lex. Clark's head was lowered, his shoulders tensed, as if he were bracing himself for something, and Lex was looking at him with a world of aching volition, like someone longing to pour strength into a vessel that only one person can fill. The two young men seemed oblivious to everything but this silent struggle.
Clark finally lifted his eyes to Lex's with a tiny, timid nod, and she could almost sense the relief flooding Lex's thoughts as he smiled at Clark.
"Now's the night that it's going to stop," Clark said, firmly, as he got up to get his jacket. Martha felt understanding wash over her--she should have known that it would be another's need that would draw Clark, that would give him not just the gentleness of goodness, but its preternatural strength.
***
A/N
Feedback is she-crab soup with fresh scallions and ginger root for the fic writer's soul!